Say you sold widgets – you know, those hypothetical doodads we use whenever we want to talk about selling something without importing the emotional baggage of a particular product.

You sell widgets. The best widgets. Grade A, primo, first class widgets.

Your goal in life is to sell the most widgets possible and thus generate the highest profit.

Unfortunately, the demand for widgets is fixed. Whatever they are, people only want so many of them. But if you could increase the demand and thus expand the market, you would likewise boost your profits and better meet your goals.

There are many ways you could do this. You could advertise and try to convince consumers that they need more widgets. You could encourage doctors and world health organizations to prescribe widgets as part of a healthy lifestyle. Or you could convince the government to mandate the market.

That’s right – force people to buy your products.

That doesn’t sound very American does it?

In a Democratic society, we generally don’t want the government telling us what to purchase. Recall the hysteria around the Obamacare individual mandate requiring people who could afford to buy healthcare coverage to do so or else face a financial tax penalty. In this case, one might argue that it was justified because everyone wants healthcare. No one wants to let themselves die from a preventable disease or allow free riders to bump up the cost for everyone else.

However, it’s still a captive market though perhaps an innocuous one. Most are far more pernicious.

In the case of government mandating consumers to buy a particular product, it’s perhaps the strongest case of a captive market. Consumers have no choice but to comply and thus have little to no protection from abuse. They are at the mercy of the supplier.

It’s a terrible position to be in for consumers, but a powerful one for businesspeople. And it’s exactly the situation for public schools and the standardized testing industry.

Let’s break it down.

These huge corporations don’t sell widgets, they sell tests. In fact, they sell more than just that, but let’s focus right now on just that – the multiple choice, fill-in-the-bubble assessments.

It wasn’t always this way. When the act was first passed in 1965, it focused almost entirely on providing students with equitable resources. That all changed in 2001, with the passage of No Child Left Behind, a reauthorization of this original bill. And ever since, through every subsequent reauthorization and name change, the federal law governing K-12 schools has required the same standardized testing.

The testing corporations don’t have to prove their products. Those products are required by law.

It’s one of the largest captive markets in existence. That’s some 50.4 million childrenforced to take standardized assessments. The largest such corporation, Pearson, boasts profits of $9 billion annually. It’s largest competitor, CBT/ McGraw-Hill, makes $2 billion annually. Others include Education Testing Services and Riverside Publishing better known through its parent company Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

If many of these companies sound like book publishers, that’s because they are or their parent companies are. And that’s no coincidence. It’s another way they bolster their own market.

Not only do many of these testing corporations make, provide and score standardized assessments, they make and provide the remedial resources used to help students pass.

So if your students are having difficulty passing the state test, often the same company has a series of workbooks or a software package to help remediate them. It’s a good business model. Cash in before kids take the test. Cash in when they take it. And if kids fail, cash in again to remediate them.

Ever wonder why our test scores are so low? Because it’s profitable! The money is all on the side of failure, not success. In fact, from an economic point of view, there is a disincentive to succeed. Not for teachers and students, but for the people who make and grade the tests.

But that’s not all.

Once you have a system in place, things can become static. Once districts already have the books and resources to pass the tests, the testing corporation has less to sell them, the market stagnates and thus their profits go down or at least stop growing.

This resulted in the need for districts to buy all new materials – new text books, new workbooks, new software, etc. It also required the states to order brand new standardized tests. So once again the testing industry cashed in at both ends.

If an industry gets big enough and makes enough donations to enough lawmakers, they get the legislation they want. In many cases, the corporations write the legislation and then tell lawmakers to pass it. And this is true for lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.

Nominated for Pushcart Prize – 2014 and 2016

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“I read through the whole book the day I got it, went back to reread and underline all the things I loved so I could tell you about them…then life took over. The short of it is that I absolutely love it…” Under the twigs of youthful dreams” ” wanting the sweet relief of wine in her veins” ” blunting the tide and inviting me in” ” and always the martinis” ” between truth and loyalty” “my good night hugs are not returned by either parent” ” her blood rivering down the drain” ” the invisible boul…

"I read through the book the day I got it."

The opportunity to be with other women, to engage in purposeful journaling, and to receive guidance from Ann enabled me to begin the next chapter of my life. Becky Salerno

"purposeful journaling....enabled me to begin next chapter in my life."

Ann Bracken’s book, The Altar of Innocence, explores the cycle of her mother’s mental illness and alcoholism and its legacy in her own life. With searing honesty and gripping details, the book creates an unforgettable portrait not just of two women but also of the ailing cultures that surround them. At the end there is an image of a ceramic heart that has been glued back together—”even broken, it was beautiful”—that makes a powerful figure both for the soul of the poet, forged through trauma, …

"the book creates an unforgettable portrait not just of two women but also of the ailing cultures that surround them. "

“What a beautiful, poignant collection of poems it is. Painful to read the journey of the little girl who had to take on so much responsibility. In this day of openness about addiction & mental illness, your poems provide a view into a personal story within a societal pact of secrecy and shame. Though as a society we still have work to do to de-stigmatize these conditions & bring compassion to the fore, we’re moving in the right direction! I applaud your courage and unflinching stance, as we…

"...your poems provide a view into a personal story within a societal pact of secrecy and shame. "

“I just listened to your interview and it was so moving and rich. Your poetry reading is only surpassed by your poetry. Though I think poetry is meant to be read aloud so the reading and the work are really one. Just beautiful. Thank you.” Eileen C.

A moving and rich interview

“This is a terrific collection. “Sometimes a Poet”, “Voices In My Ear”, “Wingless Bird”; are all wonderful poems. It’s hard to choose favorites. All these kids, Angie, Horace, Magic, Ben are vivid in your writing. I hope teachers and school administrators can read these poems and learn something.”

Peter Dan Levin

A terrific collection

Ann Bracken is an out-of-the-box thinker. She is called to shed light on the complex, universal issues of human nature, and she does it so creatively. Bev Hitchins

"an out-of-the-box thinker."

“to say that I was blown away by your poems, would be a gross underestimation!…I want every administrator, every new teacher, everyone to read your book.”

Binki McKenna, Media Specialist

amazing poems

“Your writing is truly moving and beautiful – a gift to all of us.” Liz C.